Spirit island

I grew up on this island. My grandfather witched for water with a forked hazel stick, and sometimes found unmarked graves off of unkown trails in the woods with no names.

There aren't words for this place, other than 'home'. The mere thought of the island evokes emotions in me left unstirred by any other place, any person, any time.


When I die, I want my bones to lie beneath the fields that enchanted me for a lifetime, where my bare feet knew the soil like a lover. When I die, I want my bones to lie beneath the forests where dying summer light will fall for another thousand years. When I die, I want my bones to lie beneath the dunes that my children will become intrepid explorers of. Until my bones become a part of the earth that bore and shaped me, because an islander always returns to where she came from. And I will bear the footsteps of my children on my soul, and give to them the wonders of the North.

---

'I am the last of the open spaces.
The frontiers of my heart are greater than the West,
The fields and the forests and the plains,
The islands, the oceans and the lakes.
Be kind to me,
For I am an aging earth,
Who bears the weight of generations.'